Hi Bryan, I'm really pleased that you've decided to make the games as a series of complete games rather than as parts - all too often you've forgotton the story by the time the next part comes (if it comes at all!) I really liked the integration of the FMV characters & enjoyed the story immensely. I'm sorry that there were so many negative comments. It might have helped to have had the ingame map 'updated' as you discovered rooms/items etc as navigation was obviously the major issue but I'm so glad I persevered with it!

Honestly, it's production budget coming into play again. If we were a big studio with a real budget, we would have had a sound stage built for the game, or at the very least, picked an ideal place to shoot, not been at the mercy at who will let us. While this school was interesting from the perspective of it being a combinations of several experimental architectures, it became frustrating for making sense of navigation. Even being IN the building you had a tough time figuring out where you were and where you wanted to go.

And, of course, the janitorial staff literally moving everything around every day didn't help. It threw off days of work because we had to move things back to make them consistent. And even with our efforts, it bugs me to find so many inconsistencies in the game!

With Relics 2 we went in burned by the lessons learned from the first experience. So while I can say shooting live footage with actors presents many challenges, I can't say any medium is perfect. In 3-D your quality is limited to your budget (or the talent of your volunteer contributors). Spending the same amount of money on actors as you would an animator for 3D characters would give you two different results, the FMV will have a half dozen or more live actors with lots of cut scenes while a 3D version will give you one or two characters in limited cut scenes.

When all's set and done I do find FMV facinating as I feel it really puts you "there" as a player. Unless 3D is done to a hollywood level, there's a disconnect, you're reminded they're 3D models, not people. That's not to say I'm knocking 3D, it's just the ups and downs of FMV vs 3D is a topic I could talk about all day

We had finished all of the location shooting and were beginning processing the footage to make the game when the project was put on "hold" by the publisher who, a few months later, closed up.

As it is, Relics 2 is in a permanent "limbo" state. There's always a chance it could be ressurrected but at this time I'm afraid I don't have any indication of that.

Relics 1 wasn't very well received (The Big Fish audience in particular was pretty cruel) so the push for a sequel isn't really there. Also, I learned too late that many adventure game enthusiasts will not shop at Big Fish for various reasons. The combination of those two things certainly didn't help sales.

I do appreciate everyone who's supported the game. It certainly wasn't perfect on the first attempt at making a first person point and click out of film footage but it's a shame we may never get to show off the way we improved it all for the second game.

Wow, such a quick reply! I personally enjoyed Relics a lot. That's very sad to hear how people could be so mean. It wasn't a perfect game but I didn't expect it to be: I expected an enjoyable and interesting game and I got that and more.

I was really looking forward to the sequel and seeing how the story would continue, and how you guys would improve on the first game. I hope you aren't discouraged by those on BigFish and we do get to play your game.

I'll always support developers I like and you are obviously incredibly dedicated to pleasing the fans, it's a shame some don't appreciate it. Good luck with your next project whatever that may be,

BigFish has plenty of adventures on their website under the Large File category. They have done a great service to the Adventure community by introducing these games to a whole new group of people that were only aware of casual games.

You do not need to utilize them for your games and fortunately there are other choices out there for you, but BigFish has great customer service and a large selection of games in every genre.

I'm so sorry that Relics 2 has been put on hold - I was so looking forward to the next one after enjoying the first one so much which only suffered from slightly confusing navigation.

I would agree with trying to go with GOG or Steam for new adventures. While I agree BrownEyedTigre that BFG have done a great service by introducing AGs to players of Casual Games but most of them are already popular games. I'm not sure that it's the best place for a new AG taking into account that posters are very critical & not a site that pure AG fans would choose to download their games from.